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Except he wouldn’t leave without saying anything.

Would he?

My chest tightened, and that irritated me more than anything. Last night was good. I wanted him here. I asked him to come.

And apparently waking up to an empty side of the bed was enough for my brain to start searching for what I got wrong.

I grabbed my shorts from the floor and stepped into them.

Then I heard something.

I stopped.

A cabinet closed somewhere down the hall.

I stared toward my bedroom door.

Another sound followed.

Then Ellis’s voice.

“Where the hell does this woman keep her coffee?”

My eyes closed.

Relief came so fast that I almost laughed.

Almost.

Because now I felt stupid.

I stood there for a second with one hand pressed against my forehead.

He didn’t leave.

He was in my kitchen.

Of course he was in my kitchen.

I made my way down the hall, following the sound of another cabinet opening.

When I reached the kitchen, Ellis was standing in front of the cabinets wearing his jeans and absolutely no shirt.

My panic from thirty seconds ago disappeared beneath an entirely different problem.

I stopped in the doorway.

His back was to me, and I let myself look.

Just for a second.

Maybe two.

He closed one cabinet and opened another.

“Not in there either.”

I folded my arms.